So every white person you met in Britain over a 15 year period is racist, and thus you concur all white people are racist, that they are all complicit? There's a word for stereotyping people on the basis of race, it's right there on the tip of my tongue...

There will always be racist morons, of all races. It'll never be eradicated. But this case clearly illustrates that society has moved in the right direction since 1993. Great column, I hope the sentiment of the last sentence is true.

I do not disagree with all you say but it absolutey ludicrous to suggest the London Underground bombings were the result of racial injustice. They were the result of religious extremism manifesting itself in catastrophic criminal acts killing and maiming innocent people. Indeed two of the bombers made video recordings, prior to the attacks, confirming the motivation for the bombings was religious belief.

The media will always emphasize the race for a white criminal and de-emphaize race for a non-white criminal. This is especially true if the victim is of another race. Swedish newspapers will even digitally whiten, that is Caucasianize, photos of criminals. Likewise stories with a white defendant, if there is a "racist" angle, will be heavily promoted and will receive enormous media attention, where as stories that put multiculturalism is a bad light will receive very brief and very local coverage. The media is very powerful and it uses this power to push its own fictional narrative independent of reality.

Don't expect such generous coverage for the murder of Kriss Donald or the sexual grooming of working class white girls at the hands of Pakistani gangs.

For my part, as an ardent admirer of the quite non-bigoted English patriot J.R.R. Tolkien, I'm a little upset at the insinuation that only "Britishness" denotes middle-class decency, while Englishness denotes (presumably racist and bigoted) "tribalism". If Scots and Welshmen have a right to be proud of their own nations, why not the English? Or is English patriotism unique in the world for being irredeemably racist and intolerant? I challenge Bagehot to defend that proposition.

England is a mongrel country and English is a mongrel language. The word Anglo-Saxon refers to two places in Germany, the origin of early tribal settlers from more than 1,500 years ago. There are Celts, Gauls, Danes, Jews, Poles. The Northeastern dialects of today contain plenty of words borrowed from the Vikings, a relic of invasions more than 1,000 years ago. I can remember standing on the terraces at St James's Park in the 1980s and understanding hardly a word of the conversation that was going on behind me.

The idea that there is any such thing as a unitary English race is a white racist's fantasy. There has always been immigration, and there has always been resentment against immigration, as there is in other countries.

The power of the Stephen Lawrence case, in my opinion, is that it held up a mirror to a large block of society and forced them to ask: is this us? Expressing mild resentment or prejudice against black people was commonplace and borderline acceptable when I was growing up, in a multi-racial town with many particularly Asian immigrants in the 1970s. Most people wouldn't have dreamed of condoning or carrying out violence against black people, but were comfortable with their prejudice and their feeling of the "otherness" of people of other races.

When they saw these violent murderers boasting to each other on secret surveillance cameras and taunting crowds when they were forced to testify, seeingly untouchable because they protected by a corrupt and racist police force, society collectively recoiled in horror. It made people think about who we are and what it meant to be English. Are we with the white supremacist gangsters or the dignified, honourable parents of Stephen Lawrence (who are much more "English" according to my concept of what the country stands for, irrespective of where they came from). There was a public inquiry, a media campaign, changes to the police, and finally a measure of justice has been achieved.

Painful and traumatic though it has been for those personally involved, this is how society moves forward. The Stephen Lawrence case has changed England. Bagehot's column is right on the mark, in my opinion.

As a Mexican student of linguistics, I happened to be living in Britain at the time of this murder, however I do not recollect the case, I remember very distinctly the case, of a young mother murdered in Wimbledon common, the case of the little boy murdered by two older boys in the Midlands, a gay man killed and then burned in Fulham after leaving the Uk the case of the Brazilian young man killed by the police... However it is quite stricking that I do not remember this case, which might mean something altogether... I lived in London for 5 years and I never experienced racism first handedly. I love England ever since I spent my golden years in its soil, actually my teachers did show me how the be more respectful of other people´s culture... My vision is that racist people there in Britain or anywhere else has a lot to do with lack of talent, working class frustation and bigoted people who think that because they belong to a "superior race" they deserve to be serve first... Still, all my symphathy to the Lawrence family.

'Public Opinion', a euphemism for whites' prejudices, has NOT, will NOT change. White Trash is after all 'our' trash while non-whites are non-negotiably, by definition trash.
I am an Indian - post-graduate in both engineering and sociology - and live in Britain for the last 15 years. From mortgage application to my local library I encounter racism at the slightest interaction.

Especially in the downward slope of economy, xenophobia will bare its fangs; just as in a bad traffic-jam the much fabled great british sense of public discipline just vanishes and hooting and overtaking start.

It is small distance from Stephen Lawrence to Anuj Bidwe - a mere 18 years, both the perpetrators under-18.

This has ALWAYS been the white tradition, a colonial tradition, only those massacres happened in 'native' lands for the King or the Queen, these happen here and now.

There always was 'public' complicity for the invasions then, there always is 'public' complicity' for these murders now.

Back in 78, I had a decision to make. Should I continue to l9ive in London, or leave for foreign shores.
June that year, a group of skinheads stabbed an Indian man to death in Kingsbury.The murder was only a news item in the local rag - NOT in the national newspaper.
There were some witnesses to the murder, but all of the Indian community knew that it would never get solved. In those days, and probably to this day, murders of Indian-looking people whether native or foreign born, would never get solved.
That incident made up my mind - and I applied to come and live in Australia.

I followed the Kingsbury murder case through a few friends for many years, and as far as I am aware it was never solved.

Two weeks ago, an Indian-looking student got murdered somewhere in Britain ( Check the BBC news ). I will guarantee that this murder will never get solved either.

In 2009, we came to the UK for a visit. My daughter, a 27 year old Aussie born graduate, with a good Job here in OZ was with us.
As we went through Stanstead Immigration, I was being checked in at the same time as my Daughter on the next desk.
My daughter was given a grilling and almost refused entry ( fears of illegal working ) despite the fact that she has a fantastic job here in Australia, and we have a higher rate of employment then you guys will ever have.
These commonsensical points had to be balanced against her darker skin - and the mind of thatb immigration officer, Guess what won the day?

You may ask - Am I better off in Australia?
I knew that I was, the very day I arrived to live here. In all the places I worked in or went to live in, people have and still continue to do so - they have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome.
Yes I have always felt like an Australian.
In all the years I lived in the UK - I only got invited to Irish homes and Scottish homes - The only time I was invited to an English home was for Evangelical reasons.

Having Analysed the situation well I will present a theory to you:
Such incidents as the London Train bombings and the riots in Bradford and other places including the recent London riots are probably due to this type of institutionalised racism.
When people feel unjustly treated, with absolutely no hope of ever getting justice in the normal way- they will turn to ways of protesting- even if that way of protesting is a violent way.
I include the London train bombs as a protest against racial injustice, in the name of Islam and the world wide perceived injustice against Muslims being used as an excuse.

B.T.Way, down here in Australia, Muslim boys(and I am not a Muslim) raping European girls was splashed on the front pages of the newspaper.

However - the Aussie footballers, who have a habit of raping girls often tend to be excused and their actions in past have usually been covered up.

And I detect also a healthy shift with the recent Diane Abbott racism furore (black politician makes somewhat racist remark about white people). She was initially huffy and defensive (blocking her detractors on Twitter) but is now tongue in cheek about the whole thing.

It seems to me we are all levelling ourselves a little bit and that is no bad thing at all.

I did NOT say 'every person' I met...That is your inference. I said that in any social interaction there is a potential for racist prejudices...it may manifest, may not.That potential is racism, and that will never go.Calling them 'morons' is dangerous distantiation which feeds it.

May I remind the right honourable gentleman / lady that what s/he is practising right in this post IS a blatant racist prejudice - and not mitigated in any way just by the fact that his/her victims are "white" (whatever that is meant to be). Martin.

I think xenophobia has taken on a new form. Where I previously worked I encountered people cussing about Muslims. I've had colleauges who once moaned why couldn't they stop Muslims coming to this country. Some of the conversations I found quite shocking. I've had a Muslim housemate and a few Chinese housemates. I certainly learnt a lot from my Muslim housemate and I never found anything threatening contrary to the prejudices aired by certain colleagues.

Nevertheless for my generation (I am under 30 - just) we have become more tolerant. Having friends from a different ethnic group is perfectly normal and not a big deal.

Racism has certainly been prominent in British media lately. During the summer riots David Starkey proved that bigots can be gay too when he claimed the "whites had become black". A few weeks ago, we had "tram rant woman" and a few others like it. Last week Diane Abbot has put her foot in her mouth saying "White people love playing 'divide & rule’"

Has Britain learned from all this? I don't know, it is still acceptable to make TV programmes like "Big Fat Gypsy Weddings"

Bardamu: "England is a mongrel country and English is a mongrel language."

The white British population is a mix of closely related Indo-Europeans on top of an even older Pre-Indo-European population. All are European and all have a long shared history on the island.

You apply a pretty easy criteria for "mongrel" to the English. If you apply same historical "mongrel" standard to other countries, then all nations are mongrel nations. To say that England has no true indigenous population is to say no nation on the earth has an indigenous population. If this principle were applied universally the implication would be that there are no nations or tribes of any kind at all. The media does not apply this principle universally but only to Europeans.